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Well , Paul , how much money does it cost to import a drum ( minus the drum cost ) vs extra costs above the drum there ( paperwork , taxes , etc. ) ? How much time does it take of yours ( fill forms , travel , appointments , etc. ) above the time to purchase the one there and what value do you put on that time ? This will give us a better "view" of the actual $$$ being asked for the drum itself . Only then can we give a viable opinion of what we think you should do. Chris

Here is a bit of an update about my problem. TD, who I found lives about 5 miles from me.was a great help here. Upon installing a GI mag catch, we saw no real difference. Mags were still a bit loose and we couldn't fire the gun in the house as his wife probably wouldn't understand. Anyway, I also can not measure the one in the gun without removing it. But this doesn't seem necessary given the facts above. I then thought "what would someone do in the field with limited resources?" I tried placing a piece of masking tape over the hole in the mag (couldn't hurt anything) and it worked. I then went to plastic electrical tape and ended up using two pieces, one on top of the other. This worked extremely well. I could remove and replace the magazine and it continued to work perfectly. The hole/tape is not penetrated by the mag catch, it just seems to work as a shim and tightens everything up. I do have a question though. Since I purchased an extra mag catch and Mr. Hammer solved this problem with JB Weld, I would like to try that. Seems more permanent than tape. Mr. Hammer, if you could send a picture or some detail about how you did this and where the epoxy was applied I would appreciate it. Thanks to all for their help and especially to TD.

The gun bluing process is known throughout industry as black oxide. It is only in the gun business that its refered to as "bluing". Black oxide is a hot dip immersion process which causes the surface of the steel to turn a dark color. If you sandblast a part before processing it comes out flat black. If a part is polished before processing even though you run it thru the same tank you get the gun-blue finish typical of firearms. Du-Lite is a brand name of black oxide chemicals, but there are dozens of suppliers of these chemicals and you really can't tell the difference in the end result. So, if you want the shiny finish the problem is you have to polish the parts. Unless your gun is a real dog, no matter how careful you are doing the polishing you will be reducing the value of your gun. There is simply no way to polish off the parkerizing without it being obvious when the gun is blued. The prep for parkerizing is sandblasting, and while this is also changes forever the original factory finish, it does not alter the surface as much as polishing. My recommendation would be to black oxide the receiver and trigger frame, and replace all of the other parts with EXC condition parts which are still available in the parts sets. This will get you as close as you can get to original - many of the WW2 guns had flat black (i.e. sandblasted but not polished) receivers and trigger frames with all of the other parts polished. An EXC condition parts set will cost you approx $1000 but you can retrieve 1/2 of that by selling your parkerized parts. (maybe more). You can black oxide over or thru parkerizing so it will not be necessary to polish the receiver and trigger frame. The exception would be if your parkerizing is one of the later light grey processes which can result in a thick, coarse finish. WW2 parkerizing is iron-manganese phosphate which is dark and smooth and the thickness of the finish is only 0.0002"-0.0004". (yes - those are ten-thousanths). The debate of to-refinish-or-not-refinish has raged here before but your case is a little different since your gun has been parkerized. But please, please do not have someone polish the receiver and trigger frame unless they are already so damaged that it wont matter. My $0.02 Bob

Paul, At the top of the TSMG forum page you'll see a pinned topic section. The 3rd one down is a really good magazine & drum reference guide. Good luck, be safe, Darryl

Chuck, Excellent post. I thought that magazine catch was GI but I was not going to argue with a knowledgeable West Hurley owner who had one in hand. When I first saw cliffdropover1's magazine catch I noticed what appeared to be brazing or something different in the same place as yours. I had seen that before in pictures of West Hurley Thompson's but never in person. And only one or two examples. My thought was it may have been something that occurred during the finishing process. Your detailed inspection and pictures has solved the mystery. I wish I would have had this information for my story but as I stated at the end, this is just the first attempt to catalog all the AOC West Hurley parts. This information will go into my update file. To that end, please save this catch as I would like to examine it at next years TATA Show and Shoot. The question is now should this magazine catch be replaced if it works. Replacement is certainly not mandatory but I would keep an eye on it. However, if your West Hurley is being completely re-manufactured by PK, yes, this part should be replaced. It will be interesting to see if a "real" 1928 GI magazine catch solves the problem for cliffdropover1. Good stuff!